AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate SAA-C03 Practice Test 65
Question 640
A compliance archive occasionally streams large sequential files for audit, perhaps once every few months. It requires an EC2-attached block device, but slow access is acceptable. Which EBS storage type merits cost-oriented evaluation?
- Use high-IOPS io2 SSD by default because every archive access requires transactional database latency.
- Change the data to S3 Intelligent-Tiering and expect EC2 to mount it as an unmodified EBS block volume.
- Use st1 exclusively because sc1 cannot hold user-created files at all.
- Use EBS sc1 cold HDD if its size, nonboot and performance constraints fit the archive workload.
Explanation
Correct Answer
D:sc1 favors inexpensive infrequent sequential block access when sustained performance is not the top priority.
Incorrect Answers
A:The workload is a rarely scanned archive, so provisioned transactional IOPS would add unnecessary cost.
B:S3 is object storage, not an EBS block-device volume with the same filesystem semantics.
C:sc1 is a block storage volume that can hold a filesystem; its differentiator is access/performance economics.
Question 641
A PostgreSQL instance performs thousands of 8-KiB random reads per second. A proposal replaces gp3 with st1 HDD to reduce the GiB rate, assuming the disk's high sequential throughput will help query latency. What is the correct objection?
- Keep the workload on suitably sized SSD EBS such as gp3/io2 because random transactional I/O requires low latency and adequate IOPS.
- Approve st1 because its sequential throughput figure is interchangeable with small-block random IOPS.
- Keep st1 and adjust only the database's DNS TTL to improve disk service time.
- Remove database indexes to force more full scans as a guaranteed optimization.
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:HDD throughput-optimized tiers are built for large sequential I/O, not high-frequency small random database operations.
Incorrect Answers
B:Bytes per second under sequential scans does not imply equivalent random operation count or latency.
C:DNS caching does not change the storage medium's access pattern.
D:Eliminating useful indexes often increases I/O and cannot solve the HDD random latency mismatch.
Question 642
A developer replaces a 50-GiB EC2 boot volume with EBS st1, aiming for the lowest HDD price. The new launch fails because the chosen volume type is not valid for that small boot drive. What should the architecture respect?
- Increase the st1 volume capacity to the HDD minimum but continue specifying the st1 device as the EC2 boot/root volume.
- Use a supported boot-capable EBS SSD volume such as gp3 and check HDD size/boot limitations separately.
- Change the root device to sc1 cold HDD and assume its different HDD price tier resolves the boot-volume incompatibility.
- Use a cold HDD for the boot device by multiplying its provisioned IOPS until it emulates SSD eligibility.
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:EBS HDD volumes have minimum sizes and are not intended as boot volumes, so type eligibility matters before pricing.
Incorrect Answers
A:Meeting the minimum size for an HDD volume does not make throughput-optimized HDD (st1) suitable as an EC2 boot device. A boot-capable SSD-backed type such as gp3 is still required.
C:Cold HDD (sc1), like st1, is not a supported boot-volume type. Price tiers and VPC routing cannot override the root-volume storage-type limitations.
D:Provisioning performance does not convert an ineligible HDD type into a supported boot-volume type.
Question 643
A simulation stores the only copy of a completed model checkpoint on EC2 NVMe instance-store disks. A Spot instance is interrupted and the replacement host has empty local disks. What should change?
- Turn on instance-store encryption and assume encrypted blocks reappear on any replacement instance.
- Increase instance-store scratch capacity instead of saving completed model files.
- Persist completed checkpoints to durable S3 or EBS-backed storage before the instance is removed.
- Switch only the instance DNS hostname and leave checkpoints on the same ephemeral disks.
Explanation
Correct Answer
C:Instance-store blocks are tied to the host's lifecycle and do not provide an independent durable recovery copy.
Incorrect Answers
A:Encryption protects confidentiality; it does not replicate ephemeral local bytes across hosts.
B:More local scratch does not survive loss of the original underlying host.
D:DNS metadata cannot preserve local disks after interruption or replacement.
Question 644
An HPC solver does multi-gigabyte temporary sorts whose intermediate data can be regenerated, and remote block I/O is the main bottleneck. Which storage placement is worth benchmarking?
- Write the only final simulation results to instance store without copying them elsewhere.
- Use S3 Glacier Deep Archive as the live POSIX scratch filesystem for each sort step.
- Store the spill files exclusively in CloudTrail event history.
- Place disposable intermediate spill files on suitable local EC2 instance-store NVMe volumes, with final output persisted separately.
Explanation
Correct Answer
D:Local instance store can offer fast temporary access when the workload accepts complete loss of scratch files on host failure.
Incorrect Answers
A:Disposable scratch semantics are inappropriate for irreplaceable final output.
B:An archival object tier is not a low-latency mounted scratch block device.
C:CloudTrail records API events, not arbitrary HPC temporary block data.
Question 645
A recommendation service rebuilds a local cache on replacement EC2 hosts. After a scale-in event, operators complain that instance-store cache contents are gone and want to treat it as a corruption bug. What should the design expect?
- Treat instance-store cache as disposable and repopulate it from a durable authoritative dataset when hosts are replaced.
- Depend on the old instance store automatically moving to the new instance during Auto Scaling replacement.
- Keep a single long-lived host indefinitely solely so the cache never warms up.
- Increase Route 53 TTL to persist local filesystem cache blocks across an EC2 termination.
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:Instance-store persistence is coupled to the host; a recoverable cache needs an external source of truth and a warm-up plan.
Incorrect Answers
B:Auto Scaling does not migrate an ephemeral host's physical storage to its replacement.
C:Preventing replacement creates an availability bottleneck and does not guarantee host survival.
D:DNS caching has no mechanism to preserve attached local NVMe data.
Question 646
A shared EFS filesystem supports hundreds of research clients. During peak ingest, the file system exhausts its configured throughput, although raw storage size grows only slowly. What should be tuned?
- Increase an unrelated S3 bucket's size because EFS throughput is calculated from all S3 storage in the account.
- Review EFS throughput mode and provisioned or elastic throughput against measured aggregate demand and client patterns.
- Turn off all EFS file permissions to make the system immune to throughput limits.
- Replace EFS with a single EC2 instance-store disk while requiring simultaneous NFS access from hundreds of AZ-distributed clients.
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:EFS performance depends on the chosen throughput model and sustained aggregate traffic, not an assumption of unlimited burst credits.
Incorrect Answers
A:EFS is a separate managed file service whose throughput settings are not tied to an S3 bucket.
C:Permission checks are not a throughput entitlement and removing security may introduce risk.
D:Local instance store does not supply the requested multi-client regional managed shared filesystem.
Question 647
An image processing farm uses EFS from hundreds of Linux clients, but nearly every job contends on one tiny metadata directory. Increasing filesystem throughput alone barely helps. Which additional optimization should be tested?
- Move all workers to use the same single file lock for every image operation.
- Reduce concurrency to one client indefinitely even though the workload requires a scalable farm.
- Distribute hot file and directory operations, increase safe client parallelism and measure metadata bottlenecks alongside configured throughput.
- Create extra S3 access keys on the clients and assume EFS NFS metadata operations become faster.
Explanation
Correct Answer
C:A shared filesystem can be limited by operation contention and application access patterns, not just provisioned aggregate throughput.
Incorrect Answers
A:Centralizing the lock worsens contention rather than distributing independent I/O.
B:Serial access sidesteps contention by sacrificing the very parallelism the architecture must support.
D:S3 credentials are not the governing mechanism for EFS NFS metadata throughput.
Question 648
A Windows finance team uses an existing Amazon FSx for Windows File Server SMB share with Active Directory permissions. Employees frequently overwrite or accidentally delete individual spreadsheets and want to restore earlier file versions directly in Windows File Explorer. The team will retain independent backups for major failure recovery. Which FSx feature should be configured for the user-level recovery requirement?
- Use only the daily file-system backup and assume it automatically populates every user’s File Explorer Previous Versions menu without additional setup.
- Enable Windows File History on each employee’s local laptop and assume this captures authoritative earlier versions of every file changed on the central FSx share.
- Increase the FSx for Windows throughput capacity and select Multi-AZ; these settings automatically create historical versions of overwritten SMB files.
- Enable and schedule Windows shadow copies on FSx for Windows File Server with appropriate storage limits, while retaining normal independent backup protection.
Explanation
Correct Answer
D:FSx for Windows supports Windows shadow copies to expose earlier versions for user self-service restores. Shadow copies must be explicitly enabled and scheduled, consume storage, and supplement rather than replace independent backups.
Incorrect Answers
A:FSx backups remain important for whole-file-system protection, but the ordinary backup schedule alone does not enable the SMB Previous Versions experience that lets end users recover an individual file directly.
B:Local File History does not substitute for scheduled shadow copies on the shared FSx file system. The authoritative server-side versions must be made available on the SMB share itself.
C:Throughput and Multi-AZ improve storage performance and availability. They do not automatically turn on per-file historical snapshots that appear in Windows File Explorer.
Question 649
A distributed Windows design uses a single-AZ FSx for Windows File Server filesystem for critical enterprise shares. The file service must tolerate an AZ disruption without a long manual migration. Which deployment is preferable?
- Use a supported Multi-AZ FSx for Windows File Server deployment with its managed failover mechanism.
- Keep Single-AZ FSx and simply mount it from two EC2 client AZs.
- Increase file share naming aliases until they represent two independent AZ data copies.
- Replace the filesystem with EFS solely because every managed file system supports identical SMB and AD behavior.
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:The Multi-AZ option provides a standby file server in another AZ, addressing a single-AZ availability boundary for Windows SMB.
Incorrect Answers
B:Multi-AZ clients do not create redundant file-server infrastructure if the underlying deployment stays in one AZ.
C:DNS aliases do not independently replicate the file server or enable managed failover.
D:EFS NFS semantics do not replace required Windows file protocols.
Question 650
A Windows departmental fileshare serves mostly large sequential video archives with limited random I/O. Engineers selected the most expensive SSD and maximum throughput capacity without any benchmark. What should be evaluated?
- Always choose maximum SSD throughput because file workload size is the only relevant performance signal.
- Benchmark supported FSx for Windows storage media and throughput capacity against measured access rates and latency requirements.
- Reduce the Active Directory account's password length to increase SMB disk throughput.
- Replace SMB shares with S3 object URLs without changing legacy Windows applications.
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:FSx for Windows offers selectable storage/performance configurations whose economics should reflect the actual SMB workload.
Incorrect Answers
A:A large namespace does not imply every share needs maximum low-latency throughput.
C:Identity credential policy does not determine filesystem I/O performance.
D:An unmodified SMB client cannot use S3 object APIs as a drop-in shared-folder protocol.